August 28, 2006
Reeler Pinch Hitters: Enough With the Quality Already
Well, I am back, so you can just forget about all the pithy, penetrating insights that made last week's Reeler Pinch Hitter series far-and-away the most heavily visited week in this blog's brief history. I will not get into numbers, but between the movies' hot Jew babe surge, waning New York film orgs, Roman Polanski's foot fetish and over a dozen other swell subjects that attracted so much interest, I have finally edged my own attention to NYC cinema into complete irrelevance. Think of it as losing your only child to the babysitter, but you still have to raise it. Whatever--I never lked kids anyway.
So please pardon any sludginess as I detoxify my system of California and get back up to speed in the city. It should not take too long, assuming the sitter left care and feeding instructions. At any rate, I raise my coffee cup in honor and thanks to all of my guest bloggers; without giving away too much, you might expect to see a bit more of them around these parts in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 26, 2006
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Andrew Wagner, Filmmaker
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Andrew Wagner wrote, directed and shot The Talent Given Us, VanAirsdale's favorite film of 2005. Here, he sends a dispatch from the editing room of his latest film, the New York-set Starting Out in the Evening.]
The great seduction of shooting in New York City is to assume your film inherits the intensity of the city simply by virtue of taking place within it. It's a concern that was heightened for me because I grew up in New York and feel it on a cellular level. So I was especially motivated to approach the city/character dynamic from the inside-out and was devoted above all else to exploring the inner lives of the characters and the relationships between the characters. In this sense, the real turf of the film is the field of emotional necessity. To reflect this, in shooting the city itself, we worked with the idea of wide avenues that produce a constant rev that is equivalent to a kind of silence because it is within the shadow of stillness that the true self resides.
There is a tremendous tension in the soul of New York City. While it's a point of origin for forward-thinking and future-making, the city's very essence is born out of the energy of the moment. The hum of human endeavor marries the city to the present tense. New Yorkers are embedded in the moment, a condition that is the starting point for drama, where catharsis and transformation are produced by doing and being, in characters who are not separate from their narratives and become aware of their second skin, their unconscious patterns, finally and only as an act of survival. And this idea cuts to the center of Starting Out In The Evening, a story about a New York writer who makes it into his 70s before he awakens to the necessity to change.
Going back to this idea of emotional necessity--it's really the password to storytelling. In Starting Out In The Evening, we're telling the story of author Leonard Schiller's unacknowledged need for love and recognition. Because he's in the last chapter of his life, the possibilty for these needs being met enters his life in the unexpected force represented by a young graduate student--Heather Wolfe is writing her masters thesis on Leonard's long-forgotten novels and through her thesis she aims to return this exiled king of American literature back to his throne. Painfully for Leonard, his young emissary to immortality has a collision with truth, idealism and ambition that splits his heart and leaves his legacy where it was before her promises: in doubt. But his losses leave him unnaturally vulnerable to a core shift; and though the honesty he gains with his daughter and his work will not have a public value when he's gone, it will sustain him in the rest of his life.
In making this film I had the privilege of working with a cast of uniquely gifted actors--Frank Langella, Lili Taylor, Lauren Ambrose and Adrian Lester. They all prepared and worked differently, but they had in common a passion and commitment that was so pure it was almost shocking. To the film's great benefit, Frank agreed we should rehearse as much as possible in the months leading up to the shoot. He was unflinching in the discovery of his character, and as I watch the film unfold now in the editing room, I'm awestruck by the transformation he pulled off in becoming this sealed-off man who dares only to show himself through measured word and minor gesture. And it also went this way with Lili, Lauren and Adrian, who give performances of genuine power and tenderness. We only had 18 days to shoot this film, and perhaps the most gratifying aspect of the collaboration was to witness the place of sheer transcendance these actors went to as the chaos of the filmmaking process was going on around them.
(Photo: Backstage)
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August 25, 2006
Reeler Pinch Hitter: James Ponsoldt, Filmmaker
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. James Ponsoldt's debut feature, Off the Black," will be released Dec. 1 by THINKFilm. He blogs at MySpace and at OffTheBlack.blogspot.com.]
While in my third-grade art class, Karen--the girl who I thought was my girlfriend, but wasn’t--"accidentally" spilled glue and glitter all over my drawing of a mountain lion squatting on top of a mountain. Our teacher walked over, saw the sparkly mess, and asked, “Trying to make Dadaism?”
Eight-year-old me replied: “What’s Dadaism?”
Exactly.
From MoMA's Dada exhibit (L-R): Kurt Schwitters, by El Lissitzky, 1924; Entr'acte, by Rene Clair, 1924.
Well, right now (and through Sept. 11), the Museum of Modern Art has a sprawling, once-in-a-lifetime exhibition that tries to answer that question. And this exhibit is a must-see for New York film lovers.
Really? Yes, really.
Born at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich as a reaction to the horrors of World War I, Dada quickly jumped to New York, then found root in four other cities around the world: Paris, Cologne, Berlin and Hanover. An art movement constructed out of nonsense and chaos, claiming to mean nothing, Dadaism managed to use humor to tackle weighty topics of the day, with an emphasis on anti-war messages. Dada thrived only for a short period in the teens and early 1920’s before giving way to surrealism and other art movements. But the effects of Dadaist artists and filmmakers--like Man Ray, Rene Clair, Viking Eggeling, and Hans Richter--still influence today’s filmmakers (whether they’re aware of it or not).
Clearly not an art historian, I sometimes become lost in the art-soup of Dadaism, Surrealism, Modernism, and whatever -ism is currently in fashion. As a fascinated layman, I’ve waded through Tristan Tzara’s Seven Dada Manifestos as well as Andre Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, and while there are certainly differences, it is sometimes tough to say where Dadaism ends and Surrealism begins. As far as it applies to film and popular culture, I’m not sure that it matters. (But I would argue that the silliness and nothingness that Dada brandished as an anti-war tool 90 years ago still has relevance today--especially today, while we find ourselves lodged in the center of a Middle East quagmire.)
It’s easy to watch masterpieces like Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel (co-written by Salvador Dali), El Topo by Alejandro Jodorowsky (right), or Mullholland Drive by David Lynch, and recognize the obvious influence of Surrealist art—they feel like filmed nightmares. Not quite as easy to spot is Dada’s influence—but it’s there if you look closely. Perhaps best used for comic effect, I can’t help but think of Marcel Duchamp’s sense of whimsy when I watch a Marx Brothers film like A Night at the Opera, where many of the funniest lines are utterly ridiculous (“I don’t have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They’re upstairs in my socks.”). The same is true for the jabberwocky of Monty Python and the Holy Grail or anything by the Pythons. Their humor doesn’t always make sense, but that’s OK. These are films where non-sequiturs are abundant, and the refusal to be wrestled down by logic is part of the film’s brilliance.
As the stakes get higher, gallows humor can becomes sublime. For example, wartime always seems like a ripe target: films like Dr. Strangelove, King of Hearts, Three Kings and Wag the Dog are most successful when they’re most absurd. As Oscar Wilde said, “Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about.” Leave it to a director like Stanley Kubrick to deal with the issue of mutually assured destruction by plopping Slim Pickens on a bomb and letting him ride it like a mustang.
And in an age when a quirky screenwriter like Charlie Kaufman appears to have a following that rivals that of many actors and directors, it would seem appropriate to suggest that Dadaism helped give birth to a new kind of weird. With allies like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, Kaufman is able to see his odd, fantastic and sometimes-illogical fantasies come to life on screen.
But before you think that this Dada-is-everywhere suggestion just applies to art/indie films, let me throw out one name: Will Ferrell.
In just two movies--Talladega Nights and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy--Ferrell and co-writer/director Adam McKay have managed to make incredibly successful mainstream films that also happen to have some really strange moments. They just come out of nowhere--suddenly a bear talks to a dog, or a weatherman tosses a trident during a street fight. Sure. Why not? We accept it because, well, we’ve been conditioned by other mainstream comedies featuring Ben Stiller, Mike Myers or Adam Sandler that also happen to be peppered with nonsense. If you don’t believe me, re-watch some of their films--you’ll be surprised by how bizarre they are at times. Babble has virtually become the norm for comedies. In the post-9/11 world, where film audiences have, for the most part, stayed away from direct attempts at addressing the world we live in (United 93 was an excellent film that for most people, apparently, “came too soon”), thoughtful yet silly comedies about adults behaving like children have flourished.
What's a little rock-flute without flames? Will Ferrell in the contemporary Dada masterpiece Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Yes, perhaps this is far-reaching, but I don’t think it’s possible to limit Dada to its glory years (approximately 1916-1923). Dada casts a long shadow, and has been used, since its beginnings, as a tool not only for picking apart the status quo, but also coping with pain: Nonsense art thrives during wartime. I think Dada was a hugely important counterculture movement that developed into many other counterculture movements. And it’s a far more interesting world for it. Though, as Dada itself was a simultaneous, worldwide movement, connecting the invisible cables through time and ending in a multiplex in Phoenix at a Will Ferrell movie might take a bit of imagination.
Dada wasn’t the first movement to use humor and art to attack necessary targets (political or otherwise), but it certainly had a ton of gusto and flair. And that’s worth something. You should go to MoMA and check out the well-curated exhibition, because there probably won’t be another Dada show like it anywhere for a long, long time. It includes well-known works by Duchamp, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, Max Ernst and Francis Picabia, as well as much more obscure pieces. There’s even a section including landmark short films called Dada on Film (that’s being screened separately through the Department of Film and Media).
And as you finish reading this perhaps-indulgent essay (thank you, by the way), please remember what Dada’s grandfather, Tristan Tzara, said: “Any work of art that can be understood is the product of journalism.”
Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:12 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Lauren Wissot on Roman Polanski's Foot Fetish
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Lauren Wissot is the author of Under My Master's Wings; visit her MySpace site here.]
"What’s up with the feet?" my fellow cinephile friend Roxanne and I wondered.
It had gotten to the point where they could no longer be ignored: Roman Polanski’s feet. No, not the director’s own two feet, but shot upon shot of those attached to names like Deneuve and Farrow, Mastroianni and Kingsley. Some of the greatest ankles and arches ever to grace the screen appear in loving close up or wary long shot in every film in this master’s oevure. It became a game with us: spot the foot shot. We could hardly wait for The Pianist to be released just for a possible glimpse of Adrien Brody’s bunions.
But that’s when it morphed into more than a sport; it became the concept for our very own short film. "Maybe if we recorded all the foot shots," we thought, "and lined them up frame after frame, a hidden message would appear from the director-in-exile telling us what it all meant." Eschewing gratuitous sex for gratuitous feet, we found Polanski engaging in no shortage of predictable camera ogling. Could innocent Mia Farrow ever have imagined that removing her shoes and stockings in Rosemary's Baby would become a voyeur’s striptease? (And what would Frank have said?) What about Sigourney Weaver tucked away in the background of Death and the Maiden, her pretty feet distractingly propped up on a table nonetheless? And Emmanuelle Seigner receiving that foot massage on a park bench in Bitter Moon--come on! How did the MPAA miss that scene of public indecency?
To his credit, however, Polanski performs his most intriguing filmmaking with the gentlemen. Take for example:
--Marcello Mastroianni crushing a ping-pong ball with his foot in Che? (or Diary of Forbidden Dreams);
--Lionel Stander for allowing his feet to be set on fire in Cul-de-Sac;
--Peter Coyote for grabbing a dog’s foot while enjoying a blowjob in Bitter Moon.
Anyway, The Foot (or Un Piede di Roman Polanski) is an experimental meditation that Roxanne and I have been pursuing on-and-off for several years. Because neither of us have ongoing access to equipment, it’s been mostly off. So now we’re putting the call out to any editors interested in helping us to finally achieve our foot fetish dream. We still must collect a few stray toes from The Pianist, Oliver Twist and from the Criterion Collection DVD of Polanski shorts, sync up our Vicious Pink score and voila! Feet!
Interested in putting your best foot forward? Contact Lauren Wissot at laurenvile@yahoo.com or Roxanne Kapitsa at pinkbox@aol.com.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 12:03 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: David Schwartz; Chief Curator, Museum of the Moving Image
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. David Schwartz is chief curator at the Museum of the Moving Image.]
Summer is quickly winding down, which means the busy fall film season is upon us. While S.T. VanAirsdale is squeezing in a few more vacation days burnishing his bronze tan, I’m pleased to have the chance to look ahead to late autumn and tell you about the Museum’s upcoming Jacques Rivette retrospective.
Rivette (right) is probably the greatest director to emerge during the French New Wave who has never had a complete retrospective in New York. His films, including Celine and Julie go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and Up, Down, Sideways, are playful, engaging works that express Rivette’s fascination with artifice and theatricality. Yet the movies are also famously long and multilayered. In fact, Rivette’s most famously long film, Out One: Noli me tangere, runs nearly 13 hours and has never been shown in the United States.
Amazingly, only three of Rivette’s 20 films are in theatrical distribution in this country. Now, with the enormous assistance of the National Film Theatre in London (which created laser-subtitles for Out One: Noli me tangere and five other films) and the French Embassy (which has negotiated with international archives and distributors to arrange screenings of 10 films), we have been able to put together a complete retrospective. New York audiences will have their first chance to see all of Rivette’s films in a theatrical setting.
The fun begins on November 10, and continues every weekend day through December 24. Cinephiles be prepared: Out One: Noli me tangere will be shown one time only, on December 9 and 10. If you’re interested in attending, send an email to info@movingimage.us and you’ll be notified when tickets are available. If your summer tans aren’t gone by Labor Day, they definitely will fade away after two solid months of weekends in the Riklis Theater.
While we’re at it, a quick sneak peek: on Sunday, September 17, we’ll be presenting a preview screening of The Last King of Scotland and a discussion with stars Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy and cinephile-turned-director Kevin Macdonald. Go to the Museum's Web site and sign up for our weekly email, and you won’t miss a thing. Terry Gilliam (Tideland) and the Quay Brothers (The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes) will also stop by in the fall.
(Photo: Photofest/Museum of the Moving Image)
Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 24, 2006
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Eric Kohn, Film Critic
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Eric Kohn is a regular film critic for the New York Press. His writing has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, FHM and Reverse Shot. He blogs at Screen Rush.]
It’s hard to keep up with the fantastic writing about film by veterans in the critic crowd, considering the lesser effort required to rely on the blogosphere for regular bite-sized updates on the state of cinema. Finding the time and strength to pick up a book is a much heavier task than it used to be. Consequently, I’ve just gotten around to finishing Jonathan Rosenbaum’s seven-year-old tome Movie Wars, a solemn tirade against a loosely defined “media-industrial complex.” Rosenbaum, the accomplished Chicago Reader film critic and scholar of all things celluloid, brazenly accuses his projected antagonists of wasting time pumping up mediocre corporate products, preventing commendable foreign and independent cinema from receiving well-earned love. Call it Chomsky for cinephiles.
Surprisingly, however, the only aspect of the book that’s particularly iconoclastic is the title. Despite a few possibly justified jabs at David Denby’s tunnel vision taste, Rosenbaum spends most of the 225 pages discussing films that he considers worth watching, then thoroughly rebukes American theatergoers for not paying closer attention. This is engrossing stuff--the first thing I did after completing the last chapter was place Hou Hsiao-hsien and Abbas Kiarostami at the top of my Netflix queue--but Rosenbaum unevenly oscillates between analyzing specific films and decrying the treatment of art as a commodity, which obscures the intended polemic.
The book also has an odd tinge of anachronism. I was shocked to find that the Internet, in all its film journalism complexities, is excluded from this discourse--and Rosenbaum, writing when Ain't It Cool News and other movie sites were in their infancies, was surely aware of medium's relevance, even if his early career pre-dated it by several decades. As a result of this regrettable omission, more accomplished worker bees than myself have long ago tackled the supposed flaws of Rosenbaum’s unremitting contempt for studio tactics that often bind critics to the whimsical will of a publicity-driven economy.
Actually, I read the book while on vacation, and the best result of exploring its self-styled diatribe is that it got me pumped to be back in New York, with all the lovely variety this city offers. I’ll suggest with equal fervor that you dig Film Forum’s upcoming series of Frank Tashlin films and trip out to Monster House in 3-D at the multiplexes. Because, folks, if this is a movie war, then somebody needs to bring down the wall.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:44 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Karen Wilson, Cinecultist
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Karen Wilson, otherwise known as the Cinecultist, is a film writer living in the East Village. She also contributes frequently to Gothamist, The Movie Binge and Jane magazine's celeb blog.]
With summer winding to a close and the previews for the big fall heavies hitting cineplexes, it's getting to be that favorite time of year for serious movie fans. Something Cinecultist mentioned in our Gothamist round-up last week but that we felt merited an additional post is the Filmmakers Symposium, which starts in September at Anthology Film Archives.
For the past 15 years, this series of Tuesday night screenings has featured some of the most buzzed about movies of the year. For those who don't have access to the advance press and industry screening circuit, it's an amazing opportunity to see early all the movies which will be in the running for awards. This year's proposed lineup (which allows for scheduling difficulties and conflict) has some of Cinecultist's most highly anticipated fall films like Fur (above, with Nicole Kidman as Diane Arbus), The Good Shepherd, The Fountain, For Your Consideration, Marie Antoinette, The Departed, Babel and tons more.
Tickets are a bit steep (it works out to about $30 per flick), and you have to buy a block of them in either a group of five or a group of 10 but still. If you have that kind of cash and are as obsessive as CC about seeing the big fall movies, it could be an investment well worth the obvious bragging rights: "Oh, Babel? Yeah, I saw it already. You know how Alejandro can be--so very Iñárritu-esque." You get a bit of a discount if you register before the end of August, so check out the Symposium site soon.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 01:33 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Lawrence Levi; Co-author, 'The Film Snob's Dictionary'
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Lawrence Levi is co-author of The Film Snob's Dictionary. He blogs at Looker.]
You don't need a snobbery expert to tell you which films at the 44th New York Film Festival will appeal most to film snobs. That's because, as every cineaste knows, the NYFF is the snobbiest film festival anywhere. That's not to say it's pretentious; it's only that the Film Society of Lincoln Center pointedly, and unapologetically, makes no concessions to popular taste. And just because two of the five members of this year's selection committee, John Powers and Lisa Schwarzbaum, are critics at glossy magazines doesn't mean Casino Royale made the cut.
Among this year's snob-worthy New York Film Festival selections (L-R): Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, David Lynch's The Inland Empire and Manoel de Oliveira's Belle Toujours
But Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette did. Ms. Coppola is NYFF's idea of slumming: an Oscar winner who's popular with the kids. Artsy college kids, anyway. Xenophobes, take note: there are just three other movies by Americans in the festival. Little Children, directed by Todd "In the Bedroom" Field, stars Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly. Far more tantalizing is David Lynch's high-def video debut, The Inland Empire. Celebrating its 25th anniversary with a special screening is Warren Beatty's Reds—which racked up 12 Oscar nominations but somehow managed to lose Best Picture to the now-forgotten-except-for-its-ironically-deployed-theme-music Chariots of Fire.
The centerpiece is Pedro Almodóvar's Volver, which stars Penélope Cruz in tight tops and is just as good as you've heard. Those peppy Brits whom Michael Apted has trailed for 42 years are back in 49 Up. Offside, the latest from Iran's Jafar Panahi, concerns a group of girls who dress as boys to watch a soccer game. (Good luck getting a visa for the Q&A, Mr. Panahi.) Thailand's cheeky master of the nigh-incomprehensible, Apichatpong "call me Joe" Weersethakul, brings his latest fractured narrative, Syndromes and a Century. South Korea's Bong Joon-ho, who made the twisted police procedural Memories of Murder, arrives with a monster movie, The Host, and the Hong Kong wildman Johnnie To offers up Triad Election. Closing night belongs to the Mexcian horrormeister Guillermo del Toro and Pan's Labyrinth (above), a gothic fairy tale set in Franco's Spain.
Old-school film snobs won't be disappointed. Alain Resnais, now 84, is back with Private Fears in Public Places, and Manoel de Oliveira, unstoppable at 97, offers something totally unexpected: Belle Toujours, a sequel—38 years later—to Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour. (No, Catherine Deneuve's not in it, but Michel Piccoli is.) And for snobs who find the 21st century intolerable, there's the festival sidebar, "50 Years of Janus Films." Tickets go on sale September 10; until then, please try to control yourselves.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:14 AM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Jamie Stuart, Filmmaker
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Jamie Stuart is a New York-based filmmaker. His series Mutiny City News appeared on MCN in 2005, and his current site is www.mutinycompany.com.]
All right. Never wanted my own blog. Never wanted to blog at somebody else's blog. So when The Reeler e-mailed me in a sweaty, clammy panic and pleaded for me to sub one day while he jetted off to Fiji or St. Tropez or wherever, I decided I'd take him up on the offer just so I could write about how much I don't want to blog.
Funny thing that creative process. As I sat down to write my nuclear treatise, which was to run complete with half-naked MySpace photos taken with Photobooth on my Mac (using the stretch effect), I decided there was too much goddamned negativity already out there. And as I'm anything but a conformist, I decided instead to make this argument:
In terms of quality output, the period ranging from roughly 1999-2003 will go down as one of the most significant in film history, not unlike the late 1960s/early 1970s. This era featured a convergence of generational shifts, millennial angst and the adoption of digital both professionally and in the consumer spectrum. Most observers still point to the '90s indie revolution as the last great period, however, I'd argue that it was already over by the time the media jumped on it--Pulp Fiction was the end, not the beginning. Even though by nature I prefer the concept of independence, the '99-'03 phase that saw the rise of the dependents was more dynamic--and with that, idiosyncratic filmmakers who had emerged independently (Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russell) or via music videos (David Fincher, Spike Jonze) were able to further their creativity by having modest budgets to play around with. The energy created by these new talents was met with the returns of Terrence Malick, George Lucas and Stanley Kubrick, and it also sparked the second golden era of Steven Spielberg, whose films best illustrated the immediate impact of 9/11 (he formally led the charge to reinvigorate movies with ideas after accepting blame for getting 'em kicked out in the first place). Meanwhile, with the releases of The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix and Harry Potter, the modern FX blockbuster serial was born.
Book-ended by Wes Anderson's Rushmore in late 1998 and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in early 2004, we received: The Thin Red Line; Fight Club; Minority Report; Elephant; Bowling For Columbine; Eyes Wide Shut; Lost In Translation; The Matrix; The Lord of the Rings; Being John Malkovich; Magnolia; Election; The Blair Witch Project; Donnie Darko; Requiem For A Dream; The Royal Tenenbaums; O Brother Where Art Thou? ; All About My Mother; Amelie; Three Kings; Mulholland Drive; 28 Days Later; City Of God; The Shape Of Things; The Sixth Sense; One Hour Photo; The Limey; Y tu mama tambien; Catch Me If You Can; Adaptation; The Fog Of War; Kill Bill; Ghost World; 21 Grams; Dancer In the Dark; American Splendor; Touching the Void; Punch-Drunk Love; Spider-Man; About Schmidt; Talk to Her; 25th Hour; The Pianist; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Traffic; Far From Heaven; In the Bedroom; The Man Who Wasn't There; Waking Life; Auto Focus; A.I.: Artificial Intelligence; and American Beauty -- not to mention Apocalypse Now Redux and a 70mm re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I'm sure I missed more than a few. But you get the point. The good news is it happened. The bad news is that it's over. And so is my anomalous blog attempt.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 23, 2006
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Joe Swanberg, Filmmaker
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Joe Swanberg is a filmmaker based in Chicago. His first feature, Kissing on the Mouth, will be released on DVD Aug. 29. Here he writes about his second feature and his ongoing series featured on Nerve.com, both of which screen as part of this week's Vloggers Unite! program at the Pioneer Theater.]
When 200 people crammed into the theater for a sold-out screening of LOL at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in April, the energy in the room was palpable. As the film played, it was as close to the perfect theatrical experience as I could ever expect, and proof that the theater is still my favorite way to see movies. But if you weren't in Boston that night, you couldn't see LOL, no matter how badly you wanted to.
Joe Swanberg as Patrick and Mollie Leibovitz as Maggie in a scene from Swanberg's Young American Bodies, screening Aug. 26 as part of the Pioneer Theater's Vloggers Unite! series. (Photo: Joe Swanberg)
Two weeks later, one hundred times that number of people would check out the first episode of Young American Bodies, the web-series that I directed for Nervevideo.com. Most of them probably viewed it by themselves on a crummy computer screen with dinky speakers. It was nothing like the great experience of the LOL screening in Boston, and I couldn't care less. More people watched the first episode of YAB on its first day than will see my first two features in a theater combined.
Audience size and accessibility aren't everything. I'm not convinced that the Internet is a good home for feature films just yet. When file sizes get small enough and bandwidth speed gets fast enough, it will be, but right now the medium lends itself best to time-killing. It's hard to watch a feature film when you're bored at work, but it's easy to watch a five-minute podcast. I'm less interested in putting my features online than I am in creating the best time-killing content I can produce. The audience for small indie features shrinks as the audience looking to kill time grows exponentially.
The Pioneer Theater's Vlogger's Unite! series is a sampling of some of the best time-killing content out there. They are spotlighting the first video generation in the cutting-edge art form of entertaining bored people at work. Prime time has shifted from 8 p.m to 9:30 a.m. TV dinners have given way to morning coffee. People are looking for one more reason not to start their day, and if you're good, your show (or blog or vlog) could be that reason.
As I write this, I'm in post-production on my third feature, Hannah Takes the Stairs. I will continue to chase the elusive feature film audience. I will keep lusting after that communal experience. But I'm equally excited about this new audience and these new ways of reaching them. I want to make good work and I want as many people as possible to see it, and there has never been a better time to do both.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 02:32 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Lewis Beale on Cinema's Jewish Babe Renaissance
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Lewis Beale writes about the entertainment industry for a number of national publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and USA Weekend.]
Lately I’ve been having this fantasy that someone makes a movie in which the male lead is Jewish, and gets to kick some serious ass. You know--he’s Sam Goldberg, the undercover cop about to bust a major Mexican drug cartel. Maybe he’s Capt. Cohen, a combat vet sent behind the lines in Iraq to rescue an aid worker kidnaped by Shiite terrorists. Or wait: How about a film about a real person, baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg--not only one studly looking man, but a WWII vet and a serious Jewish role model who was subjected to endless anti-Semitic taunts, and refused to play ball on Yom Kippur?
Now there’s a movie I’d pay to see. Unfortunately, when it comes to Jewish male portrayals, those of us who are Members of the Tribe--and I’m not referring to the Cleveland Indians--have had to endure a long string of cinematic whiners, wussies, neurotics, anal retentives, victims and jackasses. Think Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. Ben Stiller and David Schwimmer. Adam Sandler. And that beloved template of all things urban, obsessive and annoying: Woody Allen.
I’m confused by this state of affairs, for two reasons. It’s no secret that the film and TV industries employ a high percentage of Jews in all sorts of positions, so it’s hard to figure out why Jewish executives and performers would allow these buffonish caricatures to represent their people. Plus there’s this: At the same time that representations of Jewish males border on Der Stürmer-like stereotypes, there has never been a better time to see a whole slew of hot Jewish babes onscreen.
Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson (yep, she’s one of ours - her mom is Jewish - eat your hearts out), Amanda Peet, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Selma Blair, Winona Ryder, Sarah Silverman, Julianna Margulies. They’re all solid performers, scorchingly sexy and smart as all get-out. And they don’t play to type.
So what’s going on here? Back in the day, movie stars like John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson were recognizably Jewish, yet allowed to play a broad range of roles that best suited their talents. But today, in a dumbed-down intellectual environment, the shorthand of stereotypes is an easy way to connect audiences with film and TV performers. Hence, the Hebraic minstrelsy represented by the Ben Stillers of the world.
It’s also important to note that when it comes to their onscreen roles, several of these male buffoons are specifically identified as Jewish: David Schwimmer’s whiny Ross Geller. Larry David’s obnoxious version of himself (a performance I find especially repulsive, as if it had been written for an anti-Semitic cable channel). Adam Sandler in several films. And the self-absorbed Jerry Seinfeld of Seinfeld. Contrast this with the women, who are rarely ID’d as Jewish in their work. Sure, Natalie Portman, one of the most public Jews in the business (may Yahweh bless her), has played Jewish roles in the past, but for the most part, actresses like Peet, Johansson and Weisz pretty much avoid ethnic stereotyping.
How come? One reason, I think, is that the JAP (Jewish American Princess) stereotype, long used to define Jewish females, has pretty much been confined to the dustbin of history. It’s still around, but after years of complaints from the Jewish community, it’s hardly the defining pejorative it once was. Which means something else has also gone to the Graveyard Where Stereotypes Die: that Jewish women can’t be hot and sexual. This was an essential part of the JAP mythos; that they wouldn’t perform oral sex, or they would only do the nasty if promised a shopping spree at Bergdorf’s.
So let us give thanks, at least, that we have returned to those days of yesteryear, when an actress like Lauren Bacall could be both hot and Hebrew. Now the entertainment industry needs to turn its attention to the Jewish male and update our image for the masses. It's time for someone, anyone, to step up to the plate--the whiny shtick is getting really, really tired.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:33 AM | Comments (52) | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Bill Plympton, Filmmaker
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Bill Plympton is the Academy Award-nominated, New York-based filmmaker behind animated works including Your Face, Guard Dog and Guide Dog. He sent along this postcard from his trip to this year's San Diego Comic-Con.]
So, what's all this hype about the San Diego Comic-Con? And why do I keep going every year? Isn't it just for "comic geeks"?
Well, it used to be just for comic geeks, but since the blockbuster success of comic-based films such as X-Men, Spider-Man and Sin City, the "Con" is now the place to launch a film, and consequently one sees all the movie stars and directors there: Hilary Swank, Samuel L. Jackson, Guillermo Del Toro, Quentin Tarantino, Bryan Singer, Robert Rodriguez and the Wachowski Brothers.
Bill Plympton (R) with Claymation pioneer Will Vinton at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con (Photo: Bill Plympton)
I just returned from the 2006 Con, and besides having a booth there, I was involved with a number of events:
--I did a panel discussion and signing of the 3rd volume of Flight, a huge
graphic novel containing work from many artists, such as Jeff Smith. I did an 8-page story called "The Cloud."
--Nickelodeon had a presentation of their new crop of pilots from Frederator Studios, mine is called Gary Guitar. They showed a few others that were knock-outs. The Spike & Mike Festival had their annual late-night screening of Sick and Twisted shorts, where the audience's applause (or boos) decides the fate of some untested cartoons. About 4,000 rabid cartoon geeks were looking for blood. They showed a film called Spiral, directed by reclusive animator W.P. Murton and produced by my studio; happily, it didn't get rejected.
--A presentation of the new Animation Show. I was joined by Robert May, Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge. My film Guard Dog was shown, as was Don's ever-popular Rejected," to an equally large and rebellious crowd.
Beyond these events, I had a table to sell my merchandise--CDs, posters, books, T-shirts, sketches and mostly DVDs. The great part for me is an opportunity to meet my fans and talk to people about independent animation.
This year, the convention seemed to be twice as busy as last year, and I also got to hang out with such animation directors as Will Vinton, Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks), Mike Mignola (Hellboy), Geoff Darrow (The Matrix), Danny Antonucci (Ed, Edd & Eddy), the Adult Swim guys and, of course, the aforementioned Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. I also encountered Eric Goldberg, Matt Groening, Art Clokey, Tom Warburton, Craig McCracken, Robert Smigel and Ray Harryhausen.
Programs included sneak previews of Brother Bear II, Open Season, Ant Bully, Happy Tree Friends, plus Jerry Beck's Worst Cartoons Ever Made. How many animation festivals can compare with that line-up?
The good news is that NYC will host the New York Comic-Con next February; I happily predict they will have equal success in attracting the large animation crowd--and I recommend that you attend. For more information, check out NYComicCon.com.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 09:12 AM | TrackBack
August 22, 2006
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Bennett Marcus, Open All Night
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Bennett Marcus is the co-editor of the celebrity and gossip site Open All Night. He graciously contributed this dispatch from the Ziegfeld Theater premiere of OutKast's garish cinematic soul-ocaust, Idlewild.]
Who knew that Liza Minnelli was into rap? Homegirl said she hung out with OutKast's Andre "3000" Benjamin and Antwan "Big Boi" Patton down on the Wilmington, N.C., set of their new film Idlewild. I would have loved to have been a fly on that wall, but Liza told your humble Guest Reeler about it Monday at the film's New York premiere.
Liza with a ZZZZ: (L-R) Macy Gray, Ben Vereen, Liza Minnelli, Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton arrive at Monday's Idlewild premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater (Photo: Louis Lanzano/AP)
It should be noted here that today’s Guest Reeler, far less astute than the Real Reeler, initiated the conversation with Ms. Minnelli by asking if she was in the movie. “No, but I was there for a lot of the filming," she said. "I went to visit Ben [Vereen] because I thought it was such an unusual project. And it was thrilling to watch. I mean, he worked with these kids for like a month before they got in front of a camera, and they are so marvelous in it. And [choreographer] Hinton Battle’s work is so good. And the director is brilliant.” It should be noted here that the Real Reeler disagrees with Liza on the last point about director Bryan Barber being brilliant. (Let me also point out the obvious: This Guest Reeler has not seen this film.)
Liza then looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if her buddy Vereen had taught the guys to dance. “They could always dance!” she said.
Now that Liza had set me straight on the rap world, I was prepared for my conversation with Benjamin, who sings a love song to a dead woman in the film. “Well, actually, that was the original concept," he told me. "Like, the movie started from two video concepts, and that was the video concept for a song called ‘She Lives in My Lap,’ which I perform in the movie, and a song called ‘Church.’ Bryan Barber took those video concepts, and he stretched it out and made it this long-form movie. But it’s not a video at all.”
I didn’t get to talk to Barber, but it should be noted here that the Real Reeler also disagrees with that last statement, and in fact called the movie a long-form music video.
At any rate, your Guest Reeler is more comfortable discussing weightier issues: Benjamin displayed his appealingly offbeat fashion sense in a straw hat, orange- and blue-striped shirt and white pants.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:05 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Brian Newman, National Video Resources
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Brian Newman is the executive director of National Video Resources, a non-profit organization supporting filmmakers and other artists in independent media. He blogs at Springboard Media.]
During a recent dinner with a filmmaker, our conversation turned to the death of the Association of Video and Filmmakers, a non-profit collective better known as AIVF. "What's wrong with New York that we can't have one good organization?" she asked, "Austin, San Francisco, even Cleveland all have great film organizations and us? Nothing."
She was exaggerating, but her point was valid. The conversations about the demise of AIVF have made it clear that they had problems, but also that filmmakers have unmet needs--a place to meet, network, find crew, collaborate, to advocate on their behalf, to find in-depth information and to exhibit their work. Some aspects of these needs are served by certain local groups and by many new online companies and blogs, but many feel that we don't have a place that is clearly identified as the New York film organization; where a filmmaker new to town can walk in the door and feel like they are connecting to the community. This would seem a bit odd in the supposed independent film (and cultural) capital of the world.
I have posited that AIVF's demise is just the first fallout of a larger crisis facing similar organizations. At National Video Resources, the organization I manage, we've recognized this and are changing our model to adapt to the changing times--things like the decrease of governmental and foundation support, or the impact of new technologies on the needs of artists. Like everyone else, we need to adapt and think differently about our business, and like everyone else, we may fail. Almost every other organization has called me up to deny there is a crisis or that it applies to them. Let's take this on face value and say that the crisis isn't affecting everyone; the fact remains that no one has taken a lead at picking up the pieces of AIVF or designing better ones to take their place. This tells me that the field may not be in crisis, but it definitely has a cash flow problem.
Add to this the particulars of New York--chiefly, rising rents affecting filmmakers and cultural groups alike, and it seems that a conversation is needed about where we go from here, and what is on the horizon. We need some more imagination, some dreaming about what New York filmmakers deserve.
What if one of the larger groups in town could add just a few things to their already great programs and become the New York hub for the community? The Tribeca Film Institute, for example, has the power to build a downtown home for filmmakers, and could easily build programs to rival Sundance, but with a focus on the "edginess" of New York. Or IFP could become the perfect organization if it added some advocacy and better networking for its members (kudos to them, however, for the "Do It Yourself" additions to Independent Film Week).
What if some of the smaller groups (the DocuClubs, Film/Video Arts and similar-sized groups) considered mergers to better serve more people? There are benefits to a diversity of groups, true, but there's too much competition for the same funding and audiences right now. What if just one of these groups would move to Brooklyn (you know, where filmmakers live) and build a home there? What if we all made a case to foundations, the city and the public that independent filmmakers are crucial to New York's creative economy? What if we used the demise of AIVF to spur a greater conversation about what is needed?
Last week brought news that shows one group is dreaming about "what's next?" Downtown Community Television (DCTV) announced the receipt of major grants--over $2 million--to build a downtown home for filmmakers and audiences. Plans are still in the works, but they'll be able to offer education, facilities, equipment, screening rooms, servers and a networking location for documentary filmmakers, audiences and the surrounding communities. DCTV's focus won't solve all the issues, but they are clearly dreaming.
What's needed next are more innovative projects like those at DCTV--to help filmmakers in New York to make their films, have the freedom to create their visions and to have audiences find their work. Undoubtedly, other groups have their own unannounced plans, but I would propose that to really keep New York as the independent film capital, we need a lot more dreaming, and soon.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 01:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Martin De Leon and Lauren Kinsler, Blank Screen Media
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Martin De Leon and Lauren Kinsler edit the splendid new NYC film blog Blank Screen.]
Blank Screen really is fresh off the boat. Well, maybe more like fresh off the wagon: It was only a mere three-and-a-half months ago that we arrived here in New York from Austin, Texas, a town that, while in the middle of one of the reddest states around, proves to be a cultural haven for artists and filmmakers.
Most people know the Austin film scene from our resident cowboys Robert Rodriguez and sweetheart Richard Linklater. While Rodriguez comes with an attitude, no one better represents Austin than Richard Linklater--from the love of science fiction to the development of new animation technology to the two kids and a fuel-efficient car. We used to see him all the time at our local grocery store (he likes Dijon mustard!). But it isn’t just the filmmakers that make Austin a tight, thriving film community. It's the University of Texas, which continues to churn out award winning filmmakers every year and whch hosts the production company Burnt Orange. It’s the arthouse theaters like the Alamo Drafthouse, the grassroots Cine Las Americas Film Fest, the Austin Film Society (which gives out grants to emerging filmmakers), and, of course, the big elephant in the room, good ole South by Southwest. Those two weeks of cultural indulgence are what Austin is about. Well, maybe what Austin on speed is about.
But Austin, though sunny and long-haired, is still a small town, and that's one reason moving to the Rotten Apple sounded neat-o. For example, there is only one alternative newspaper (you can only get so much press out of them), not enough independent film screenings and only one major film society. Austin also has too many qualified, creative people and not enough places for them to work. You have Ph.D.'s waiting tables, established screenwriters working crap temp jobs and snot-nosed directors just waiting to take your gig. Texas may be huge, but the amount of arts jobs is as tiny as Danny Devito.
And now we arrive in New York City--the “cultural capital of the world,” they keep telling me, where I continue to walk around in awe at the size of the film community that exists. Not only is it the endless amount of arthouse theatres, production companies and damn good film blogs, but it’s the high school kid throwing movie parties on his roof, the grass roots film fundraising, the experimental movie/music/theater/comedy/movie events and this unparalleled passion for film. And while we may have just gotten here, I can assure you we won’t be leaving any time soon.
So, Austin, meet New York--you two should be friends.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 11:10 AM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Evan Shapiro, IFC
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Evan Shapiro is the executive vice president and general manager of IFC. His Captain's Blog appears on the network's Web site.]
I loathe “reality programming.” I harbor no disrespect for the hundreds of people who produce “reality” TV--I know it’s a very difficult job, and realize that the shows can often be entertaining. But, ever since the arrival of Survivor and The Amazing Race and Project Greenlight, and Project Runway and The Contender, and, and, and, and... I have feared that we are on the precipice on the demise of Western culture itself.
"Reality" then and now: (L-R) PBS' An American Family and IFC's This Film is Not Yet Rated
Other than the new class of un-celebrity it has created, my major issue with the genre is that--like many things in these Orwellian times--“reality programming” is deceptively named. After all, “reality programming” is not based in reality at all. It is a complete manipulation that owes far more to fiction than any reality I know. Survivor bears about as much resemblance to being stranded on a deserted island as General Hospital does to The Mayo Clinic.
Today’s ever increasing number of “unreality shows” are genetic mutations of cinema vérité television, begun in 1973 by PBS with its stunning twelve part documentary series, An American Family.The series--directed by Alan and Susan Raymond--chronicled in painful detail the disintegration of the family of Patricia and Bill Loud and their five children. The eldest child, Lance, was the first openly gay person in a prime time television series, and, during the series, Bill moved out and Pat filed for divorce. It was riveting. No audition shows, no text message audience votes. Just real reality.
By comparison (for the most part – there are exceptions), today’s unreality shows look like Star Trek: They are clearly scripted; they are highly planned; and they leave little, if anything, to chance, circumstance or actual filmmaking.
But, I have found, there is an upside.
The explosion of “reality programming” has seemingly created something unusual in the American public--an appetite for reality. This, in turn, has created a significant boon for what is traditionally the most downtrodden end of the entertainment industry--documentary films and filmmakers.
Documentaries are supposed to reflect the culture back unto itself--to show us a reality that we might have otherwise missed. Great documentary or vérité directors unveil secrets that lie beneath or behind the veneer of every day life. The stories they tell are sometimes uncomfortable for us to see. But that does not make them any less important than, say, Superman or Wedding Crashers.
"Who woulda thought Al Gore could be a box office star?"
Traditionally speaking, however, the word “documentary” has spelled death at the box office. Now, while far from reaching blockbuster status, documentaries have become a somewhat reliable and sought-after genre among indie and mainstream studios. Even theatrical failures are relatively low risk ventures with an upside on television and DVD, while the hits can be--and have been--substantial money makers. Shit, who woulda thought Al Gore could be a box office star?
This has created a renaissance of sorts for docs, with the minis, indies and majors getting in the game and more funding flowing from investors in Hollywood and beyond. More importantly, for the first time in my memory, it has helped important filmmakers and relevant films actually find audiences. This shift has allowed the genre to grow beyond Michael Moore, to include entertaining films such as Wordplay, The Aristocrats and March of the Penguins, but has also allowed films like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The War Tapes and The Ground Truth to garner greater recognition and distribution.
While I am loath to admit it, I believe this current phenomenon is owed at least in part to “reality programming” on television. Audiences have been taught--by none other than Super Nanny and (gulp) Donald Trump--that a television show or a film does not have to have movie stars and special effects to be entertaining. In some cases, they’ve learned, it’s even OK to actually learn something while you watch! There are other factors, I’m sure, at play, but it’s hard to ignore the new found appreciation for vérité created by shows like 30 Days and My Life on the D List.
On September 1, IFC is releasing Kirby Dick’s documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, into theaters, including an exclusive run at IFC Center. It’s an unvarnished, real-life examination of the Motion Picture Association of America, and the censorship of American movies--featuring a lesbian private eye (Becky Altringer) who investigates the MPAA’s ultra-secret ratings system. This is the first time I’ve overseen a theatrical release (let alone a multi-city theatrical run) of a documentary. And while I retain a major distaste for “reality programming,” it’s hard--if not impossible--to imagine staging such a wide documentary release in a pre-reality TV world.
This is hard to say, but… Thank you, Jeff Probst.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 08:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 21, 2006
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Lisa Vandever, CineKink
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Lisa Vandever is the co-founder and director of CineKink, which is dedicated to the celebration and encouragement of kink-positive depictions in film and television. She likely watches less porn than you think she does.]
Historically speaking, August is known as the poor-pitiful-me month around CineKink world headquarters. This is the time of year when, leading into our annual October festival run in NYC, everything suddenly feels mind-crushingly undone. Promotions feel uninspired. Sponsorships feel unconfirmed woefully untapped. And, most pressing, piles upon piles of tapes and DVDs feel unscreened, sitting accusingly in a post-triage, pre-viewing assemblage in various corners of the office.
With our call for entries doubled over last year, we’re also enjoying some nice growing pangs this season. While this is great in terms of "mission"--providing a safe and enthusiastic harbor for the kink-friendly and sex-positive from around the globe, the more the merrier--this kinda sucks in terms of enjoying the activities one traditionally associates with summer. Quite certainly, everybody else in the free world is enjoying a sun-dappled day at the shore. And/or taking in the latest high-production-valued studio release involving snakes on a plane or any other inconsequential somesuch.
Instead, childhood admonitions to get outside and get some fresh air jump to fevered mind while sitting in the air-conditioned dark, eyes fixed blearily to the screen, pondering life’s eternal questions: Which is the stronger drive - the one for sex or the one for narrative? Is this an insightful commentary on the desire to be taken fully by another--or a juvenile miscomprehension of that crucial little thing known as consent? How much screen time devoted to full-on cunnilingus will a theatrical audience tolerate in today’s remote control society? (And how do you spell "cunnilingus"?)
Happily, I’ve been able to take a brief respite from all of that, as this guest missive finds me in beautiful Portland, Oregon, my hometown and site of the latest Best of CineKink screenings. This touring component of our festival was just introduced this year; our bookings have been haphazard to date, with the determining factors generally being a welcoming venue, along with a personal desire to visit the city of said welcoming venue. The notion of turning my usual late-summer visit with my parents into a tax deduction made a Portland run quite attractive, and a friend was able to put me in touch with the Clinton Street Theater, a city institution that also boasts one of the country’s longest continuous bookings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (I was there for it once, sometime circa 1981.)
The audiences for the tour have been a little hit or miss. Mostly hit, fortunately, with a turnout surpassing New York in some places. And even where the actual attendance has been rather grim, we’ve been greeted with a seemingly heartfelt appreciation and anecdotes of someone driving all the way across state for the chance to take in the program.
Still, back on my old turf, I’m exceptionally nervous. As the screening draws near, I’m expecting to count four heads in the audience with the knowledge that two of them are my parents (and my dad is also one of the filmmakers featured in this particular showcase, which is a whole other story.) We linger as long as possible over dinner, then venture to the theater. Waving aside the offered comps, I insist on paying for my parents so they’ll count in the box office tally.
Inside, though, the crowd is not only not embarrassing, it’s altogether respectable. Better still, since the theater also hosts a brew pub, they’re drinking--always a good predictor for a fun screening. As the films begin to play, I relax, though I always relax at this point. It’s never about the quality of the works. The drama is always over getting people into the seats to see the works in the first place.
I wander outside and snap a few pictures of the marquee. I chat with the cashier and learn that the attendance is not only phenomenal for a weeknight, but the crowd is mainly new faces drawn to the theater by CineKink. In the pub, I commiserate with the owner over the ever-shrinking pie of revenues--and we talk about doing a fuller festival run next spring.
The post-screening Q&A is brief, but friendly and enthused. No anecdotes of cross-country ventures this time, but the enjoyment and appreciation of the works is most definitely there. I find myself ready to go back and delve into those waiting stacks of tapes for the next go-round of CineKink.
Though a few days at the shore would also be nice...
Posted by stvanairsdale at 03:32 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Paddy Johnson, Art Fag City
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues; click here for other entries in the series. Author of the popular blog Art Fag City, Paddy Johnson is a writer and artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. Her writing has been recently been featured in the New York Observer, Flavorpill, and NYFA Current.]
Over the last year, MonkeyTown has received a lot of attention for the successful combination of an innovative performance and screening venue with some very fine cuisine. Assuming you don’t mind sitting on couches designed for the rare few who enjoy awkward posture, the attention is well-deserved. The primary viewing and dining space in the back of the restaurant boasts four giant projection screens that flank the walls of the room, an open center space which is often used for performance and a rather fancy sound system (6.1 surround sound, for those who take stock of such things.)
Largely because we like MonkeyTown, this Friday we attended its SloMo Video screening, with the intention of determining whether 100 One Minute Long Slow Motion Videos is the best or worst curatorial film concept of the year. Contrary to what you might think, there are a lot of reasons for this project not to suck. In addition to having the reputable backing of MonkeyTown, it is conceived and curated by Ryan Junell, who is responsible for all kinds of great work you’ve probably seen or heard about, without knowing who’s behind it. For instance, he has directed brilliant videos for high profile indi bands such as Spoon, Gravy Train!!! and The Soft Pink Truth, is the director of See The Elephant, an experimental documentary on the 2004 presidential election, and the event director of Webzine, a 2005 conference on an independent publishing on the Internet.
With this background in mind, perhaps it is not overly surprising that SloMo Video defies expectations and is not an exercise in self-inflicted pain. Outside the quality of video submissions, the largest contributing factor to this is that Junell works with the understanding that the novelty of the slowed down human voice very quickly wears thin on an audience. For the most part the mix of sounds throughout the screening is tolerable, and on the rare occasion is even excellent. This may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but it is important keep in mind that there is only so much a person can do to a slomo compilation without entirely altering the soundscape of the project. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that everyone who came to the screening stayed for its completion is a feat in and of itself. (It should be noted here, however, that the screening unexpectedly turned out to be a popular date movie, so our analysis of audience attention span should probably take into account such things as “the cuddle factor.”)
A still from Calling All Occupants, one of the featured films in the SloMo Video series
Date interests aside, the most engaging videos in the series were usually the ones that employed sound in unusual ways. For ten bucks, you too can watch the limited edition DVD and learn that squeaky dog toys have a fascinating pitch in slow motion, as do kids screaming at the top of their lungs (Internet nerdocracy alert: There are less than 400 DVD’s left of the original 1000.) Made by Junell himself, this particular video is arguably the best in the series. Other standouts include a humorous alien dance video (we all hate the hipster alien, but multiply this species, film in slow motion and suddenly it’s entertaining,) and on the more disturbing note, a video of man pushing a safety pin through his eyebrow in slow motion, proving that videos under a minute can still be way too long. The man playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun also proved this point well.
The only real caveat with this touring film festival is that even at an edited-down 120 minutes, there is still far too much material to truly keep the audience’s attention for over an hour and a half. The show could benefit from shaving twenty videos from the roster, and the first piece I’d chose to go is the slow motion animation of the mullet man beating a woman to death on the beach. With the amount of good material already in the screening there is no need to water down the screening with videos that excel in the arena of bad gender politics and poor taste.
Click here for a complete list of SloMo Video's 85 participating filmmakers.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 12:23 PM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Josh Horowitz, BetterThanFudge.com
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues. Click here for other entries in the series.]
Howdy, gang. Josh Horowitz of BetterThanFudge.com (bookmark it--it’ll make you feel gooood) here with a little contribution as The Reeler does whatever it is he does when not chained to a computer and giggling to himself with glee over the latest selections at BAM. Oh, come on--I kid because I love. And I write to fill space. So here we go…
Lessons Learned from a Summer at the Movies
--All I really need out of a summer blockbuster is Felicity to get her brain fried.
--Judging from his unpleasant facial expressions, I’m convinced Paul Bettany was suffering from IBS throughout The DaVinci Code shoot.
--Having seen Art School Confidential, maybe it’s not the worst thing that Bad Santa was cut without Terry Zwigoff?
--Some movies are about how much the human spirit can endure and some, like Keeping Up with the Steins, actually test how much the human spirit can endure.
--Movies about global warming don’t need scenes of Jake Gyllenhaal being chased by wolves after all.
--Some lines (“I’m the Juggernaut, bitch”) really do read better on paper.
--Making Doc Hollywood into a Pixar film is a waste of a lot of talented people’s time.
--A Prairie Home Companion was pretty good. Does Francis Ford Coppola need a new heart too?
--The Lake House is gonna make a wicked Saturday afternoon TNT combo with Sweet November one day.
--Watching Adam Sandler sob uncontrollably in old age make-up is as uncomfortable for me to watch as it surely was for him to film.
--Do you frigging remember Nuclear Man? You all were way too hard on Superman Returns. For shame…
--I will take Cutthroat Island over that bore of a Pirates sequel any day of the week.
--When Gong Li asks you how fast your motorboat goes, she’s being literal. She wants to know.
--Woody Harrelson might want to consider having his performance animated over every time from here on out.
--Night, I love ya, but no matter how many times you cite it as an influence, Lady in the Water ain’t E.T. It’s more like Batteries Not Included.
--My Super Ex-Girlfriend has more funny in it than you’ve been led to believe.
--“Sugar Tits” Gibson may hate the Jews, but I still love Conspiracy Theory. That’s how big a guy I am.
--Rex Reed just isn’t the limber man we all thought he was.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 10:03 AM | TrackBack
Reeler Pinch Hitter: Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
[Note: Reeler editor S.T. VanAirsdale is taking the week off, but the blog is in the good hands of trusted friends and colleagues. Noel Murray writes about all things popular and cultural for The A.V. Club and the Nashville Scene. He lives in the thriving metropolis of Conway, AR—population 40,000.]
I’ve never been to Los Angeles, but I think I understand it. I’ve lived my whole life in small towns and suburbs--mostly in the south--and when I see Los Angeles in movies and on TV, it makes sense to me. Strip malls, subdivisions, supermarkets... this is what I’m used to. I blame Spielberg and sitcoms for my nearly lifelong desire to live in California--a thought that makes a lot of my friends shudder. But I can’t help it; Hollywood makes West Coast suburbia look like the life I’m used to, only bigger and cleaner and newer.
"The flip side": (L-R) Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember and Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets
I’ve never been to New York City either, but based on what I’ve seen in movies, I don’t “get” New York. The city seems nice enough on film--especially in that bronzed, autumnal phase that filmmakers are so drawn to--and I can almost relate what I’ve seen of New York in movies to other cities I’ve spent time in, like Boston or D.C. or Toronto. (Though not the cities I know best: Nashville and Atlanta.) I’ve ridden subways. I’ve walked through Chinatowns. I’ve stayed in fancy old hotels. But New York still doesn’t make any sense to me.
The reason? Nobody seems to live there. New York on film is all apartments and offices and Central Park, with trips to restaurants and bars and ballgames and the Met, and there’s a lot of moving from one place to another on trains and taxis. But New York is so big that all the individual spaces look disconnected--like a series of movie sets. Even Do The Right Thing, shot on location in one Brooklyn block, looks abstracted and unreal. I miss the sense of continuous space I get from, say, a movie by Curtis Hanson or Alexander Payne, whose greatest directorial gifts are related to the way they can make Pittsburgh or Omaha look like a complete world, so detailed that you almost feel like you could drive from one location to another without a map.
I confess that my fascination with cinema is as much voyeuristic as it is aesthetic. I’m constantly scanning movies--especially old movies--for flashes of familiarity. Real restaurant menus, real home interiors, real magazine covers and office parks. Other people may hate product placement, but I kind of like it, because it means that in 20 years I’ll be able to go back and see what a Mountain Dew can looked like in 2006. I’ve often said that movies are a substitute for the diaries and scrapbooks I don’t keep; and movies from the early '70s in particular allow me to piece together parts of my childhood that I barely remember.
But New York movies aren’t much help to me. Maybe it’s that the city is too fixed in time, full of skyscrapers and brownstones that have been standing since the early 20th century. Meanwhile the suburbs and exurbs continue to change--some would say too rapidly. As it is, the New York movies that speak to me strongest are the ones that spend most of their time out of the city, like On Dangerous Ground, which starts as a remarkably lively urban policier, and then heads out to the sticks. Or The Ice Storm, which is about people who live in Connecticut but work in New York, and which lets audiences feel both their closeness to the city and their physical and emotional remove.
Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Ang Lee's The Ice Storm
Don’t get me wrong: I like movies set in New York. The ones I like best are the ones that let me in a little, like Mean Streets or Midnight Cowboy or Madigan, all of which show a seedy but very lived-in New York. I wouldn’t want to live there, but at least I can almost picture it. On the flip side, I’d have no idea how to live in the New York of An Affair To Remember or Breakfast At Tiffany’s. And as much as I like Woody Allen films, I can’t picture what it would be like to live inside Annie Hall--except for maybe in the scenes where Allen and Diane Keaton go to the movies.
Maybe that’s the problem: that people in New York movies don’t spend enough times in multiplexes. Or grocery stores. Or banks (unless they’ve got guns and ski masks handy). I have little sense of what it’s like to live in New York in the minutest sense. Do you ever swing by a fast-food drive-through on the way home from work? Do you hit the convenience store for a 20 oz. Coke? Where do you buy gas? Or open checking accounts? I can’t get my toddler to sit in her stroller or hold my hand when we take a walk around our quiet cul-de-sac; how do you ferry your young around New York?
Oddly enough, the piece of entertainment that gives me the greatest sense of how a person might live day-to-day in NYC is Seinfeld, which always moved its characters from one mundane locale to the next—including drugstores and health clubs and malls and movie theaters. I get such a strong sense of New York every time I watch Seinfeld, it always takes me a minute to remind myself that the whole show was shot in L.A.
Posted by stvanairsdale at 08:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack